Glee Fic: you and your friends
For smc_27, as per her request - and being the loveliest, of course. This happens to be too big to fit into a comment box. And with a lot of feelings, of course.
you and your friends
at some point they are all going to have to grow up; there are too many small moments that they should remember to pay attention to.
glee | jesse/rachel | spoilers for asian f | 2,314 words, PG
-
She does not call him first.
Shelby sits Rachel down at the teacher's desk, after pulling her away from her locker and both Finn and Puck. There is a pacifier in the corner; an apple sits next to a stack of papers and she can't help but shake her head.
"Sugar," the older woman says dryly. "And something about an apple a day."
"Lucky you," Rachel mutters.
She doesn't exactly know why she's here, or if it really matters. The cast list for the musical still hangs up in the hallway. It sits between her fourth and seventh period classrooms; Rachel finds herself going out of her way to avoid looking at it. Glee is bad enough too. It's like everyone is back to splitting sides. She sits between Puck and Finn, Quinn too, trying not to look up and catch Mercedes.
It's been a weekend and a few days of her thinking this is Maria like it's supposed to outweigh the mess of friendships that now stand. It's Maria thought and somehow, winning the part with no sense of how hard she's worked or not even being able to hold onto the fact that she did the best that she could - and then, subsequently, the part going to Mercedes - doesn't feel right at all. She doesn't feel like she's grown up. She doesn't feel like it's something she's supposed to have and that, right there, is even more devastating than anything else.
But she looks up when Shelby closes the door, walking over to the desk and leaning back against it next to her.
"What's wrong?"
Rachel's hands drop to her lap. "I don't understand why you want to talk to me."
"I was going to say congratulations," Shelby tells her. Rachel watches her as she tucks her hair behind her ear. It's the same, strange gesture; Rachel tries not to feel too uncomfortable with the idea of a mirror image. "But it looks like that's not what you want to hear."
Rachel curls her hands into fists in her lap. Her teeth pick at her lip.
"I don't know what I want to hear," she says quietly. That'a lie, she thinks. "It's nice that Maria is going to be that first, token role. When I circle back to it, it'll be quite the experience of course."
Shelby laughs. "Rachel." She reaches forward, touching her shoulder. "I heard how they went about it - I would be just as angry as you, if it was about sharing roles."
"It's not about the sharing," she blurts. She bites her lip hard and she's frustrated, even a little angry - this is not the place she wants to talk about this. "And anyways, Mercedes told me to take it. I'm not going to apologize for taking it either. I work hard for all of this and she knows - we had this conversation. She didn't even fight - I worked hard for the role and I just - the whole thing - it feels like we were both cheated. And then, oh god I think I'm rambling, and rambling of course is because I'm upset - I just - I'm tired. I'm tired of everything."
Shelby brushes her fingers against her face. Rachel jumps and draws back, eyes wide. Shelby stares at her hand and then turns away, pushing herself off of the desk.
It's been a week of these odd moments. It's been Shelby there, but not there; it's as if the woman wants her to do something but then she goes and she pulls right back and it makes no sense. It's in between Puck and Quinn too, and while Quinn is Quinn, Puck is her friend and she does not want to be selfish and invasive and ruin anything that he has happen for him, between Beth and her mother. It's just that her place between all of this is inevitably shaky.
"I'll be right back," Shelby promises, and it's earnest, maybe too earnest, as this is Shelby and she's seen most, if not all public faces of the woman that is her birth mother. It sounds cold and callous in her head, but she's trying to survive that too on top of everything else.
Rachel doesn't know what to think.
There is no knock on the door. Rachel looks up, mid-sentence as Jesse walks into the room and in turn, shuts the door behind him. His mouth quirks.
She draws back from the desk.
"I come in peace," he says.
Her arms cross in front of her chest. Her feet touch the wheels of the chair and she starts to sway in the chair, her fingers curling around the end of her skirt. The fabric twists in her fingers and he moves to sit at the desk too, taking Shelby's seat. His legs brush against hers and her cheeks flush.
"She called you," Rachel says flatly.
"Summer was a good enough break," Jesse says. He shrugs, picking up the apple. "I think she feels responsible for us too."
"Funny."
He shrugs. "I never said that I got her either."
The summer was a strange mix of Finn and her fathers, Kurt and trying to figure out new moments and friends and of course, of course, there was and is New York at the end of all of this. She and Jesse did talk, at coffee shop in between her house and his uncle's; there were no apologies. She thinks it's because they've done that already, in their own strange ways. Jesse is better at coming back. Rachel is best at holding onto things. She's not exactly sure how that holds up against each other.
But she can feel her shoulders sag. She stops thinking about Finn - he's at the garage and there's Kurt, of course, speaking to her but not really speaking to her. Her hair slips and frames her face, her teeth running over her lip.
"I'm Maria," she says after awhile.
He chuckles. "Of course." There's a pause and she feels his fingers graze the top of her head. They drag along her ear, pushing her hair back. When she looks up, he's serious. "It's inevitable, you know."
She snorts. "Recycled line."
"But very true."
His fingers touch her jaw. She turns her head and catches his hand, pulling it away from her face. She exhales and the corners of his mouth turn.
"For all your twisted, cruel senses of loyalty," she starts slowly. "I think that at the very least, with Vocal Adrenaline, there was a sense of appreciation for the work - whether it was the solo or the number, even if you all hated each other."
Jesse shrugs. "That's apt."
Rachel rubs her eyes. "I work really hard, Jesse." She meets his gaze again. "I know that I can be obvious and abrasive and really, really hard to get along with. But I work really hard and I can let it go knowing that I worked hard for a role and did my best. But I can't even have that with this. Mercedes and I were going to share the role."
Jesse groans, shaking his head. His hands drop at the desk.
"Rachel, jesus - " he sighs loudly, dramatically, and she knows, knows that he's trying to bite back a comment about the school and Mr. Schuester and this ridiculous notion - engraved in everything they do - of fair and friends and teamwork. She agrees. But she's tired too.
"Mercedes was angry," she says quietly. "Appropriately so - I was angry too. But I wasn't going to give it up. I worked just as hard as she did. I had a right to say yes like she did. I don't know why everyone is expecting me to sacrifice what I want too. Like I owe them everything. It's like I'm not supposed to want things."
He grabs her hand.
"Stop," he murmurs.
He tugs her hand, then arm and she's standing from the chair. He drags her between his legs and reaches for her face. His palms press against her cheeks.
"Look at me," he says. He's serious. "I know you. I know Hudson's not going to say the things you need to hear. I know Shelby's too terrified to clean up whatever it is she's trying to do this time around or whatever - but she called me and that's the right thing to do."
Rachel snorts. "I don't want to talk about Shelby."
"But you will." He pulls a hand away from her face. It goes to her hair and it's like a second habit, falling into old motions. His fingers twist lightly in her hair. "And I'm not here for her. She didn't call me for her either."
Her mouth twists, but she says nothing. Gently, Rachel peels his hand away from her face. Her head dips forward and his fingers move to the back of her neck.
"Have you told him any of this?"
"Jesse," she warns.
"It's a fair question," he says.
She smiles faintly. Her eyes feel heavy and she shrugs, trying to avoid the question. It's too hard to talk about Finn to Jesse and Jesse to Finn; keeping them separate is the most sensible thing to do.
But the strangest thing, out of all of this, is that Jesse still makes the most sense. She cannot predict him, but she knows where he'll stand and how close he'll want to be. She knows that she can say to him all things and the answer will hold a certain reassurance.
Jesse pushes himself off the desk. "You haven't," he guesses.
"It's not for you to know," she says. Her cheeks flush and she tries to look away from him. But Jesse is too close. "If you coming here was to make me feel better, it doesn't really work that way, you know."
He laughs.
"I mean it," she insists.
"I've missed you," he tells her.
Her eyes roll. "I'm still here and," she points out. "We talked during the summer."
"And I told you," he says. "I'd wait for you in New York."
Her cheeks flush and she remembers, remembers the way he reached across the table to grab her hand and pull her close. There is nothing like being close to Jesse, but it's the way that she loses perspective - quickly and instantly. She cannot think with him around. She never has been able to.
He cups her face still between his hands and leans in, his mouth brushing against her forehead. He lingers too, the turn of his mouth grazing her skin and then when he pulls back, he's smiling too. He tucks her hair behind her ear and she watches him as he steps around her and then away. He reaches the door and opens it.
When he pauses, she merely waits. His hands shove into his pockets.
"You're too good for them," he says, and turns away at the door; it's really not a conversation at all.
There is Shelby and Beth, Quinn, Puck and Glee. There is no room for her in any of this. Finn leaves her house around ten; she lies and tells him that her dads are coming home early from their trip and he kisses her cheek. But when he's gone, when he's really gone, she finds herself going downstairs to the basement and grabbing a suitcase.
It takes her all of twenty minutes to decide. It's five minutes to her room, three to open the suitcase over her bed and laugh at what she's decided to do. This is personal though; she packs lightly and with the necessities, a few books and a few more little things - a bracelet from her grandmother, the ring her dads gave her for her sixteenth birthday, there's photos of her and Puck and their ridiculous town-to-town adventure that involves a long story about his kid sister and their efforts to just be. These are things that go under the clothes, protected and safe, even as she zips up the rest of her bag.
She tucks the suitcase into her closet, underneath and behind her winter coats. When she closes her doors, she leans against them, her eyes shutting too.
Now there is her New York suitcase. In case of all emergencies.
Blaine is gracious and lovely. Kurt reluctantly comes around until he admits that she's too hard to be angry with and she apologizes because she's Rachel and some old habits are hard to break. The rehearsal starts that week though, on a Friday with Rachel sitting in her own odd corner of the stage with a script. She doesn't need to read the script.
This isn't for them, she thinks.
Midway through, she spots Jesse at the top corner of the seating. There is Shelby standing at the door, below him. She wonders briefly if they've talked again. It doesn't matter though; if anything, Jesse knows her well enough to keep his business with Shelby between the two of them. She cannot and will not be the ties that bind. If there's one that Glee shows her, it's an easy mess of things when you start thinking about friends that are friends or not and all the sides that you're supposed to choose.
It's her turn though. Her feet walk her to center stage, her fingers buried in the fabric of her dress. Blaine is off to the side. There's Santana too and if she were to look, really look, she'd spot Finn trying to coax Mercedes to come in with the rest of the club.
Her eyes never leave the seating though; it may be the stage. Her gaze steadies back over him and he seems to lean forward, elbows on his knees.
This is will not be an old habit after all.
you and your friends
at some point they are all going to have to grow up; there are too many small moments that they should remember to pay attention to.
glee | jesse/rachel | spoilers for asian f | 2,314 words, PG
-
She does not call him first.
Shelby sits Rachel down at the teacher's desk, after pulling her away from her locker and both Finn and Puck. There is a pacifier in the corner; an apple sits next to a stack of papers and she can't help but shake her head.
"Sugar," the older woman says dryly. "And something about an apple a day."
"Lucky you," Rachel mutters.
She doesn't exactly know why she's here, or if it really matters. The cast list for the musical still hangs up in the hallway. It sits between her fourth and seventh period classrooms; Rachel finds herself going out of her way to avoid looking at it. Glee is bad enough too. It's like everyone is back to splitting sides. She sits between Puck and Finn, Quinn too, trying not to look up and catch Mercedes.
It's been a weekend and a few days of her thinking this is Maria like it's supposed to outweigh the mess of friendships that now stand. It's Maria thought and somehow, winning the part with no sense of how hard she's worked or not even being able to hold onto the fact that she did the best that she could - and then, subsequently, the part going to Mercedes - doesn't feel right at all. She doesn't feel like she's grown up. She doesn't feel like it's something she's supposed to have and that, right there, is even more devastating than anything else.
But she looks up when Shelby closes the door, walking over to the desk and leaning back against it next to her.
"What's wrong?"
Rachel's hands drop to her lap. "I don't understand why you want to talk to me."
"I was going to say congratulations," Shelby tells her. Rachel watches her as she tucks her hair behind her ear. It's the same, strange gesture; Rachel tries not to feel too uncomfortable with the idea of a mirror image. "But it looks like that's not what you want to hear."
Rachel curls her hands into fists in her lap. Her teeth pick at her lip.
"I don't know what I want to hear," she says quietly. That'a lie, she thinks. "It's nice that Maria is going to be that first, token role. When I circle back to it, it'll be quite the experience of course."
Shelby laughs. "Rachel." She reaches forward, touching her shoulder. "I heard how they went about it - I would be just as angry as you, if it was about sharing roles."
"It's not about the sharing," she blurts. She bites her lip hard and she's frustrated, even a little angry - this is not the place she wants to talk about this. "And anyways, Mercedes told me to take it. I'm not going to apologize for taking it either. I work hard for all of this and she knows - we had this conversation. She didn't even fight - I worked hard for the role and I just - the whole thing - it feels like we were both cheated. And then, oh god I think I'm rambling, and rambling of course is because I'm upset - I just - I'm tired. I'm tired of everything."
Shelby brushes her fingers against her face. Rachel jumps and draws back, eyes wide. Shelby stares at her hand and then turns away, pushing herself off of the desk.
It's been a week of these odd moments. It's been Shelby there, but not there; it's as if the woman wants her to do something but then she goes and she pulls right back and it makes no sense. It's in between Puck and Quinn too, and while Quinn is Quinn, Puck is her friend and she does not want to be selfish and invasive and ruin anything that he has happen for him, between Beth and her mother. It's just that her place between all of this is inevitably shaky.
"I'll be right back," Shelby promises, and it's earnest, maybe too earnest, as this is Shelby and she's seen most, if not all public faces of the woman that is her birth mother. It sounds cold and callous in her head, but she's trying to survive that too on top of everything else.
Rachel doesn't know what to think.
There is no knock on the door. Rachel looks up, mid-sentence as Jesse walks into the room and in turn, shuts the door behind him. His mouth quirks.
She draws back from the desk.
"I come in peace," he says.
Her arms cross in front of her chest. Her feet touch the wheels of the chair and she starts to sway in the chair, her fingers curling around the end of her skirt. The fabric twists in her fingers and he moves to sit at the desk too, taking Shelby's seat. His legs brush against hers and her cheeks flush.
"She called you," Rachel says flatly.
"Summer was a good enough break," Jesse says. He shrugs, picking up the apple. "I think she feels responsible for us too."
"Funny."
He shrugs. "I never said that I got her either."
The summer was a strange mix of Finn and her fathers, Kurt and trying to figure out new moments and friends and of course, of course, there was and is New York at the end of all of this. She and Jesse did talk, at coffee shop in between her house and his uncle's; there were no apologies. She thinks it's because they've done that already, in their own strange ways. Jesse is better at coming back. Rachel is best at holding onto things. She's not exactly sure how that holds up against each other.
But she can feel her shoulders sag. She stops thinking about Finn - he's at the garage and there's Kurt, of course, speaking to her but not really speaking to her. Her hair slips and frames her face, her teeth running over her lip.
"I'm Maria," she says after awhile.
He chuckles. "Of course." There's a pause and she feels his fingers graze the top of her head. They drag along her ear, pushing her hair back. When she looks up, he's serious. "It's inevitable, you know."
She snorts. "Recycled line."
"But very true."
His fingers touch her jaw. She turns her head and catches his hand, pulling it away from her face. She exhales and the corners of his mouth turn.
"For all your twisted, cruel senses of loyalty," she starts slowly. "I think that at the very least, with Vocal Adrenaline, there was a sense of appreciation for the work - whether it was the solo or the number, even if you all hated each other."
Jesse shrugs. "That's apt."
Rachel rubs her eyes. "I work really hard, Jesse." She meets his gaze again. "I know that I can be obvious and abrasive and really, really hard to get along with. But I work really hard and I can let it go knowing that I worked hard for a role and did my best. But I can't even have that with this. Mercedes and I were going to share the role."
Jesse groans, shaking his head. His hands drop at the desk.
"Rachel, jesus - " he sighs loudly, dramatically, and she knows, knows that he's trying to bite back a comment about the school and Mr. Schuester and this ridiculous notion - engraved in everything they do - of fair and friends and teamwork. She agrees. But she's tired too.
"Mercedes was angry," she says quietly. "Appropriately so - I was angry too. But I wasn't going to give it up. I worked just as hard as she did. I had a right to say yes like she did. I don't know why everyone is expecting me to sacrifice what I want too. Like I owe them everything. It's like I'm not supposed to want things."
He grabs her hand.
"Stop," he murmurs.
He tugs her hand, then arm and she's standing from the chair. He drags her between his legs and reaches for her face. His palms press against her cheeks.
"Look at me," he says. He's serious. "I know you. I know Hudson's not going to say the things you need to hear. I know Shelby's too terrified to clean up whatever it is she's trying to do this time around or whatever - but she called me and that's the right thing to do."
Rachel snorts. "I don't want to talk about Shelby."
"But you will." He pulls a hand away from her face. It goes to her hair and it's like a second habit, falling into old motions. His fingers twist lightly in her hair. "And I'm not here for her. She didn't call me for her either."
Her mouth twists, but she says nothing. Gently, Rachel peels his hand away from her face. Her head dips forward and his fingers move to the back of her neck.
"Have you told him any of this?"
"Jesse," she warns.
"It's a fair question," he says.
She smiles faintly. Her eyes feel heavy and she shrugs, trying to avoid the question. It's too hard to talk about Finn to Jesse and Jesse to Finn; keeping them separate is the most sensible thing to do.
But the strangest thing, out of all of this, is that Jesse still makes the most sense. She cannot predict him, but she knows where he'll stand and how close he'll want to be. She knows that she can say to him all things and the answer will hold a certain reassurance.
Jesse pushes himself off the desk. "You haven't," he guesses.
"It's not for you to know," she says. Her cheeks flush and she tries to look away from him. But Jesse is too close. "If you coming here was to make me feel better, it doesn't really work that way, you know."
He laughs.
"I mean it," she insists.
"I've missed you," he tells her.
Her eyes roll. "I'm still here and," she points out. "We talked during the summer."
"And I told you," he says. "I'd wait for you in New York."
Her cheeks flush and she remembers, remembers the way he reached across the table to grab her hand and pull her close. There is nothing like being close to Jesse, but it's the way that she loses perspective - quickly and instantly. She cannot think with him around. She never has been able to.
He cups her face still between his hands and leans in, his mouth brushing against her forehead. He lingers too, the turn of his mouth grazing her skin and then when he pulls back, he's smiling too. He tucks her hair behind her ear and she watches him as he steps around her and then away. He reaches the door and opens it.
When he pauses, she merely waits. His hands shove into his pockets.
"You're too good for them," he says, and turns away at the door; it's really not a conversation at all.
There is Shelby and Beth, Quinn, Puck and Glee. There is no room for her in any of this. Finn leaves her house around ten; she lies and tells him that her dads are coming home early from their trip and he kisses her cheek. But when he's gone, when he's really gone, she finds herself going downstairs to the basement and grabbing a suitcase.
It takes her all of twenty minutes to decide. It's five minutes to her room, three to open the suitcase over her bed and laugh at what she's decided to do. This is personal though; she packs lightly and with the necessities, a few books and a few more little things - a bracelet from her grandmother, the ring her dads gave her for her sixteenth birthday, there's photos of her and Puck and their ridiculous town-to-town adventure that involves a long story about his kid sister and their efforts to just be. These are things that go under the clothes, protected and safe, even as she zips up the rest of her bag.
She tucks the suitcase into her closet, underneath and behind her winter coats. When she closes her doors, she leans against them, her eyes shutting too.
Now there is her New York suitcase. In case of all emergencies.
Blaine is gracious and lovely. Kurt reluctantly comes around until he admits that she's too hard to be angry with and she apologizes because she's Rachel and some old habits are hard to break. The rehearsal starts that week though, on a Friday with Rachel sitting in her own odd corner of the stage with a script. She doesn't need to read the script.
This isn't for them, she thinks.
Midway through, she spots Jesse at the top corner of the seating. There is Shelby standing at the door, below him. She wonders briefly if they've talked again. It doesn't matter though; if anything, Jesse knows her well enough to keep his business with Shelby between the two of them. She cannot and will not be the ties that bind. If there's one that Glee shows her, it's an easy mess of things when you start thinking about friends that are friends or not and all the sides that you're supposed to choose.
It's her turn though. Her feet walk her to center stage, her fingers buried in the fabric of her dress. Blaine is off to the side. There's Santana too and if she were to look, really look, she'd spot Finn trying to coax Mercedes to come in with the rest of the club.
Her eyes never leave the seating though; it may be the stage. Her gaze steadies back over him and he seems to lean forward, elbows on his knees.
This is will not be an old habit after all.